Prince the Peacock

When it rains it pours, I am not usually one to complain about the weather but I really wish that the wind hadn't blown the shingles off of the roof of the office last night. Lets just hope it doesnt rain too much today, anything is better than snow I guess. Unfortunately it is only a matter of time before we get some of the white stuff as well. Hopefully it comes for the holidays and can be gone before New Years Eve. Reminder to everyone that we still have a great Holiday Gift idea (see previous blog). For a fifty dollar donation we will provide you with a gift card and a kestral or screech owl nesting box to give as a gift for that hard to buy for person. Supplies are limited so dont wait until they are all gone. Screech Owls will nest in anyones backyard, the squirrels like the boxes as well. Kestrals like open fields, directions on where to hang the boxes are included. We MUST get artificial nesting sites provided for Raptors or we will start losing species in our area.
Two weeks ago, the Educational Raptors of NY Wildlife Rescue Center were the star attractions at the New Hartford Shopping Center's big arrival of Santa. We had a great night and even though we were at the far end of the mall away from most of the festivities, most of the people made it down to see our birds and visit our display. Next Friday night (Dec 10th) at Miracle on Main Street in Middleburgh, we will have the three wise owls at the Middleburgh Barber Shop for Santas big night in town. We will also have our nestbox winter fundraiser display up. This will be one of our last appearances for the next couple of months. It is too difficult and stressful to take the birds out when the weather is nasty.
Things have slowed down a lot at our facility which is nice. This is the time of year that I get a lot of calls from people looking to find homes for their livestock and pets. We also had a fox squirrel from Florida come in that I am trying to become friends with. We will overwinter him and maybe try to figure out how we can get him back to florida and back into the wild. We also had a peacock named Prince come in last weekend. Ive had phone calls from a couple of different Animal Control Officers in Schenectady about how to catch this peacock. Gigi from Northcountry Wildlife Rescue was the person that finally caught up with Prince and got him off of the street. We have several peacocks that roam the grounds of NY Wildlife Rescue Center. We get a coupleof peacocks in as rescues every year. What most people dont realize with domestic peafowl is that they can be very vocal (loud) and that they need to be properly housed and penned. They are very susceptible to predators and bad weather. They can not be let out of their pens to walk around the yard until they have been penned long enough to know where home is.....if they get let out too early they will just wander off and become a casulty to cars, dogs or predators. Prince had adopted a neighborhood in Schenectady as his own. The folks were feeding him but his luck would have run out shortly. He is in a good safe spot now. As soon as he realizes that he is in a good place with lots of friends (and peahens) he will be let lose to guard our grounds with his keen eye and loud alarm calls.
I have also been getting a lot of calls from people lately looking to "get rid of" their llamas, alpacas, potbelly pigs, sheep and goats. If anyone can provide a great longterm home to any of the just mentioned species of domesticated critters, I would love to downsize the herd for the winter. Well, time to call the insurance company and see about getting a roof over our head. Till next time. WES